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Thursday, March 7, 2013

Doubles facts

Today we tried something new in math to show our learning. As we continue to move towards implementing Common Core State Standards and we want our kiddos to do more showing, explaining and proving their work and thought processes I have been finding that creation apps such as Doodlecast Pro, Educreations, Phonto, Pic Collage, and so many others are going to be a wonderful asset. Today on a bit of a whim, I tried something new and a little bit out there. As I always tell my kiddos, "You won't know until you try it"- right????

So here's what took place. Our math lesson yesterday and today revolved around learning and practicing turn-around facts. Along with that we discovered and discussed turn-around facts for doubles numbers as well (or rather the lack of a turn-around fact). As a multi-faceted assessment/learning tool today, I started by emailing my students a copy of a fact table from our math journal. When they opened their email they saved the photo to their camera roll so they would be able to access it from various apps.
We then went into Doodlecast Pro and imported the image and rotated it to landscape orientation. At this point their job was to independently:
1) Press record and find, highlight, and recite all of the doubles facts
2) When they finished they were then supposed to explain the pattern that the doubles facts made on the table
3) Tell what makes doubles turn-around facts special.

Last, they emailed me their finished Doodlecast recording to me. My plan was to then share these with parents at our upcoming parent teacher conferences.

Reflecting on the experience, I think the objective was good, the students' knowledge of the technology was good as was their basic knowledge of the concept, however, "proving" their ideas has proved tricky for them and I honestly don't think it was the assignment but rather the fact that this is so new to them or maybe it's this particular class as they are very dependent on me for approval. We are constantly working on becoming independent thinkers but it has proved to be very difficult for this particular group of kiddos.